Clean up near Shook Road bridge Friday

The Great Canadian Shoreline clean-up happens in Mission this Friday, starting at 10 a.m.

The national event is being coordinated here by the Adopt-A-Block Society, and efforts will be targeted around the Shook Road bridge in Hatzic.

This family-friendly event is also great for high school graduates looking to earn volunteer hours, said AAB’s Kristin Parsons.

Co-leading the team is Paul McCracken, shoreline clean-up coordinator, who said Tim Hortons is donating coffee, while Real Canadian Superstore is providing fruit trays to keep volunteers fed.

The cleanups began in 1994, when a small team from the Vancouver Aquarium conducted a local

shoreline cleanup in Vancouver’s Stanley Park.

In 2002, the Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup became a national program, providing all Canadians the opportunity to make a difference in local communities, while taking part in a nation-wide event.

Participants removed 143,737 kg of litter from 3,144 km of shoreline in 2011. The event has become Canada’s largest contributor to the International Coastal Cleanup, a global effort to remove harmful litter and aquatic debris from shorelines.

Shoreline litter is a threat to aquatic life and ecosystems – litter can leach harmful chemicals into the water, accidentally be eaten by wildlife and entangle aquatic animals such as otters, turtles and birds.

Litter travels from hundreds of miles inland. For example, a plastic sandwich bag that blows off a picnic table inland can be washed down a storm drain, river, lake or stream, and be eaten by an aquatic animal.

To register for the Mission event, visit shorelinecleanup.ca. For more information call Kristin at 604-826-9423, or Paul at 604-820-6355.